hacking – Page 20 – Stilgherrian

01 March 2014

Talking RATs and webcams on The Project

Screenshot from The Project, 28 February 2014 It’s been a while since I got to talk directly to The Project presenters, but I did so last night. And I was captioned as a “Cyber Security Commentator”, which is obviously a bit special.

The story was about the security risks of webcams. Presenter Gorgi Coglan introduced it thusly:

What if I told you that the webcam in your computer could be under the control of someone on the other side of the planet, and watching everything you do right now?

I was pleased that The Project introduced the Channel TEN audience to RATs, or remote administration (or access) tools, and managed — as they nearly always do — to strike the right balance between scary and funny.

Over the fold you’ll find the video of the entire four-minute segment — starting off with a “package”, as they’re called, featuring Hacklabs director Chris Gatford, followed by the panel interviewing me.

It was the Friday team, so that panel consisted of presenter Gorgi Coglan, comedian Lehmo, the inimitable Waleed Aly and, just to be different, Richie Sambora, guitarist of Bon Jovi fame.

Continue reading “Talking RATs and webcams on The Project”

01 March 2014

Talking the Apple Car rumours on 1395 FIVEaa

The fact that Apple is in further talks with electric car manufacturer Tesla has triggered rumours that an Apple Car might be on the way. Orly?

Presenter Will Goodings grabbed hold of Joshua Dowling, motoring editor for the News Limited mastheads, and your truly to talk it through on Adelaide radio station 1395 FIVEaa on Wednesday 19 February.

Dowling’s explanation of global auto industry issues was excellent, so I’ve included his comments in the audio here.

I’ve then skipped over a bunch of adverts before getting to my contribution — which mentioned smart cars, the internet of things, the potential for surveillance, and the risk of hacking all these things.

I also spoke about Gartner’s prediction that by 2020 there’ll be 50 billion objects connected to the internet. Yes, the smart rice cooker got a mention, as did the hacking of the smart TV.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (8.3MB)

01 March 201401 March 2014

Talking Internet of Things on ABC Gold Coast

ABC logo The fact that a bunch of technology journalists had gathered on the Gold Coast to discuss the latest tech trends caught the interest of the local ABC radio station. This conversation from Wednesday 19 February is the result.

Presenter Nicole Dyer and I ended up talking about the Internet of Things — and of course I mentioned the internet refrigerator and the internet rice cooker — smart cars, smart air conditioning, smart TVs and how they can be hacked. It’s a more lighthearted approach to some topics that I’ve discussed more seriously elsewhere.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (3.8MB)

27 January 201429 January 2014

Weekly Wrap 190: Wattle you know, some productivity!

My week of Monday 20 to Sunday 26 January 2014 saw the return of something approaching productivity, as well as a stabilisation of the chaos. Excellent.

I’ve also started to get a clearer idea of where I want to take my media work in 2014, but more about that another time.

Articles

Obama’s proposed NSA ‘reform’ changes nothing, ZDNet Australia, 20 January 2014.
Is this the world’s safest phone?, Technology Spectator, 24 January 2014. This is my intro to Blackphone for the business folk.
Our hackers, who art in open source, deliver us from refrigerators, ZDNet Australia, 24 January 2014. I think it’s fair to say that I had a lot of fun with this piece.

Media Appearances

On Monday I spoke about digital privacy and Apple being forced to give refunds on Adelaide commercial radio 1395 FIVEaa.
On Wednesday I spoke about the government’s discussion paper on online safety for children on ABC 702 Sydney, but it seems like I accidentally deleted the recording. Oops.
On Thursday I spoke about passwords on ABC 105.7 Darwin.

Corporate Largesse

On Tuesday one of the police sergeants at Katoomba gave me two packets of blue jelly beans. This is not a euphemism. They were part of the community outreach they were doing at the Katoomba Village shops. They were yummy.

There was nothing more substantial, surprisingly. But the coming week has some, and I’m looking forward to it.

The Week Ahead

I’ve finally caught up with these posts, so it’s now worth writing about my plans again. I wonder how long this will last?

As I write this on a holiday Monday afternoon, I’m still in the Blue Mountains. However I plan to be in Sydney overnight on Tuesday and Thursday, in both cases because there’s a good chance that certain business-social events in the evening could run a bit late. Or a bit messy. Or both. I’ll be in Sydney Tuesday through to Friday.

As always, the plan could change at short notice, so either pay attention to my Twitter stream or look at the calendar.

Tuesday will primarily be about mapping out the next few weeks — something that needs re-doing after the unproductive weeks disrupted my previous version of the plan. I won’t jinx it now by proposing when I do what, however. Let’s just watch it unfold.

[Update 28 January 2014, 1055 AEDT: Deleted references to being in Sydney on Tuesday. Plans changed.]

[Update 29 January 2014, 1610 AEDT: Changed references to when I’d be in Sydney again. Because plans changed again.]

[Photo: Australia Day in the eucalypt forest, being a lovely rendition of a wattle of some description on a quiet, drizzly day. Now bad for a photo taken on a bashed-up smartphone.]

10 November 2013

Talking Bitcoin robbery on ABC Radio’s AM

ABC logo More than a million dollars worth of the digital currency Bitcoin was stolen from a Bitcoin wallet service that seems to have been run by a young man who won’t be reporting the theft to the police.

I was interviewed by ABC Radio reporter Will Ockenden to provide some context about Bitcoin and digital currencies generally, and fragments of that interview were used on Friday morning’s edition of the national current affairs program AM. Hit their website for a transcript.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (1.5MB)

03 November 201303 November 2013

Visiting Canberra to hear Eugene Kaspersky

I’m headed to Canberra this week to hear Eugene Kaspersky, chief executive officer and chairman of Kaspersky Lab, speak at the National Press Club on Thursday 7 November.

It’ll be an interesting event.

When I last spoke with Kaspersky in May — you can listen to that conversation now, because it became the first episode of the Corrupted Nerds: Conversations podcast — it was before Edward Snowden’s revelations began. Before “all of the cybers” changed from being something of interest only to a few specialist technology and national security writers into front page news around the world.

Actually, I’ll embed it here so you don’t even have to click through.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/115103814″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

I suspect that the kinds of questions asked by the insular and largely Canberra-bound press gallery journalists will be as revealing of the state of play as the words of the Russian information security star himself — and he knows how to work the media.

Kaspersky is speaking at the NPC at lunchtime on Thursday, immediately after which I’ll be reporting on it for ZDNet Australia. But I’ll be in Canberra from early Wednesday afternoon through until Friday afternoon, so if you want or need to catch up, do let me know.

Disclosure: I am travelling to Canberra as the guest of Kaspersky Lab.

[Photo: Eugene Kaspersky speaking at CeBIT Australia 2012. Original photo by CeBIT Australia, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC-BY) license. Digital manipulation by Stilgherrian.]